Compared to figure-eight tracks of the common configuration, amusement-park businesses can expect an increase in the attraction of the ride combined with a cost-advantageous construction, with improvements in such rides. Up to now, however, the course of the development has not led to an installation capable of operating in an unobjectionable manner.
In the amusement ride proposed in German Patent 861 369 with gondolas in the shape of airplanes swingably suspended from a track, there was still no concept regarding the construction of the track system and the chassis. To the contrary, German open application 23 06 385 puts forward a basic concept wherein two vertical support arms are stationarily mounted to the passenger carrier and swingably suspended over running rollers and guide rollers, each to one carriage. Here the running rollers are guided in channels which are disposed opposite to one another and are rigidly connected. Between these channels the chassis is provided with a ball-and-socket joint for the swingable suspension of the support arms for the passenger carriers. Over curved stretches the channels are inclined correspondingly to the expected centrifugal force. Lateral forces are supposed to be absorbed by spring-equipped guide rollers. In this system the fact that suspended passenger cars can be subjected to pendulously swinging motions even when the curved tracks were inclined, was ignored.
On traveling over a curve, the suddenly acting centrifugal force causes the pasenger car to swing outwardly past the equilibrium position and then again, to swing back past the original vertical position. The passenger car also swings around the equilibrium position. Upon leaving the curve, the passenger car can continue to swing, and resonances can result. The safety of the passenger cannot be guaranteed.
German Patent 23 29 423 attempts to relieve this problem in the case of a similarly known amusement ride by proposing that in a rigid carriage the lateral guide wheels be rigidly guided and the running wheels be journaled via a rocker. The tracks, consisting of four tubes, are always disposed horizontally, even on curved stretches. The thereby increased pendulous oscillations are absorbed by friction damping members, the damping action thereof being proportional to the angular offset of the passenger car. These friction-damping elements are telescopically mounted between an almost vertical support rod holding the passenger car and the carriage pivotally mounted in such a way as to describe a smaller radius than that of their pivot point on the support rod. The forces acting upon the pivot point on the carriage generate a torque in the latter which causes the undercarriage to press against the rails with two of the guide wheels on one side. Also the running wheels are pressed against the upper rails, which can lead to the undesired braking of the running wheels.
In practice, this known arrangement does not avoid the feared pendulous swinging, but rather increase the susceptibility to breakage of the parts of the carriage and even of the supporting structure of the passenger car.